FRIDAY,OCT.5,2001
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Speaker urges empathy, not hate
By Brent Briggeman Kansan staff writer
A Palestinian man dressed in formal attire once criticized Edward Said for leaning too much toward the West in his ideals.
Said's reply to the man was simple: "Why are you wearing a suit and tie? They are Western symbols, aren't they?"
Said had made his point. The line between Western and non-Western ideals and cultures is fading, he said.
Said told a crowd of more than 400 people last night at the Kansas Union Ballroom that understanding people of all nationalities and backgrounds was the only way to approach the kind of terrorist acts that have recently ravaged the United States.
"Muslims are no longer on the
fringe of the West, but in the heart," he said.
Said has taught humanities at Columbia University for the past 35 years. In that time, he's seen the study of humanities break from one class to specific classes specializing in Western and non-Western culture.
He cited the segregation of classes as one example of an "us versus them" dichotomy, which has led to hard feelings among members of opposing cultures. He said all cultures were made by men, which meant their core beliefs and principles were multifaceted but invariably similar.
"Clash of culture is a gimmick," he said. "It's no different than 'War of the Worlds.' I don't believe we have two cultures who are doomed to war."
Veronica de Jong, graduate teaching assistant of the Eastern
language and culture department, said the speech, sponsored by the Humanities Lecture Series, sent a message more people needed to hear.
He also stressed that discussion of the terrorists and their movement is not the same as condoning their act.
"It's not just students who need to hear this," de Jong said. "The media has been slowly changing its tone, but you still don't see the kind of discussion and understanding that you'd hope to see."
Said, who was born in Jerusalem and was once a member of the Palestinian parliament-inexile, asked that Americans realize that Osama bin Laden and his followers are an extremist group, much like the Branch Davidians and lim Jones followers.
Finally, Said told the crowd the end result he hoped would come
"Clash of culture is a gimmick. It's no different than
'War of the Worlds.' I don't believe we have two cultures who are doomed to war"
Edward Said Columbia University professor
of the recent violence.
"I hope we will see that we are part of the world," he said. "We don't live in this isolated sphere of our own."
Contact Briggeman at 864-4810
Play gives Haskell students a voice
By Leah Shaffer
Special to the Kansan
A specially commissioned play at the Lied Center last night exposed community members to Haskell Indian Nations University's perspective on the ongoing South Lawrence Trafficway controversy.
The play, Threads, Ethel Nickle's Little Acre, written by Bruce King, tells the story of Ethel, a woman who refuses to give up her land for a highway. In the play, Ethel's own brother-in-law pressures Ethel into giving up her land, and he refuses to acknowledge his own debt to his ancestors.
Threads closely mirrors the South Lawrence Trafficway controversy. The western leg of the
trafficway was completed several years ago, but a Haskell organization successfully stopped the completion of the project, which would have cut through sacred wetlands.
Now, however, the Kansas Department of Transportation and the city are moving ahead with a new plan to complete the eastern leg of the trafficway that would still affect the wetlands.
King's play was commissioned by Haskell's Thunderbird Theater to be performed in Lawrence. About 600 people attended the performance last night.
Tony Higheagle, Thunderbird Theater's technical director, said that the play gave Haskell students a voice on the issue of maintaining the land.
"It brings in the humor that is in Native-American culture that gets overlooked."
Justin Unger Overland Park senior
"I thought it was great," Higheagle said. "It touched on all issues."
Justin Unger, Overland Park senior, said the play showed a connection between the wetlands and local ancestry that Kansas Department of Transportation had overlooked.
The play was also filled with
humor, which surprised some of the audience.
"It brings in the humor that is in Native-American culture that gets overlooked," Unger said.
Avis Ballard, Haskell junior, said the play was funny, and it did a good job dealing with the themes of land and home.
The performance was part of the first year Civic Dialogue Project, a three-year project coordinated between the Lied Center and Haskell. The aim of the project is to begin a dialogue between Native Americans and others in the Lawrence community through the use of the arts.
Israel savs it is target of terrorist campaign
The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS Responding to Arab claims that the Palestinians are victims of "modern terrorism," Israel told the U.N. General Assembly yesterday that it had been the victim of "an indiscriminate and suicidal terrorist campaign."
On the fourth day of a weeklong General Assembly debate on international terrorism, the definition of terrorism — and deciding
how to tackle it — surfaced again.
The 22-member Arab Group said Tuesday that it supported a U.N.-led effort to combat terrorism following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States but also said it considered the Palestinian victims of "modern terrorism" and stressed their right to fight for independence.
Reiterating the Arab view yesterday, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador, Mohammed Al-Douri, accused Israel of carrying out "planned
Israel's U.N. Ambassador, Yehuda Lancry, countered that "this past year, Israel has been compelled to engage in legitimate self-defense against an indiscriminate and suicidal terrorist campaign that erupted in blatant violation of signed agreements and which has claimed hundreds of
assassinations" as part of a campaign of "organized terrorism against a whole population whose land was looted and whose rights were ignored."
innocent lives."
Lancry urged the United Nations to oppose any effort "to artificially distinguish between one kind of terror and another."
The year-old Mideast conflict has killed 665 Palestinians and 182 people on the Israeli side.
"Let us be clear: the indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians to advance political or religious objectives is terrorism, no matter how its apologists seek to label it," he said.
Muslims contend with mixed emotions
Arab Americans have experienced outrage, pride isolation
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — As Farooq Muhammad treated victims of the World Trade Center attack, the emergency medical technician and Muslim struggled with more than saving lives.
"Even as I was helping treat people from the service, I could see they were looking at me in a different way," he said. "I felt ashamed because Muslims had done this. I felt ashamed of my religion and I felt isolated."
An American of Pakistani descent, Muhammad is among an estimated 200 to 300 Muslims in the 13,000-member fire department. While they grieve for the more than 300 firefighters lost Sept. 11, they are also dealing with the fallout of the attack made in the name of Islam.
"It's a double whammy. As a human being, I'm outraged. As a Muslim, I feel the people who did this launched an attack on Islam," said Kevin James, a supervising fire marshal and president of the Islamic Society of Fire Department Personnel.
Muhammad, 26, was helping at the scene when the twin towers collapsed and was injured himself in the stampede away from the falling buildings. He has spent the last three weeks struggling with his feelings that morning.
"Looking back, I wish I hadn't felt that way. This is not Islamic. Islam doesn't teach this. Islam is as American as apple pie, maybe more so," he said, adding that since Sept. 11, he has vowed to learn more about Islam to better defend his religion against those who say it condones violence.
He agreed with the sentiments James expressed in this week's issue of "The Chief," a newsletter for fire department personnel.
"I am proud to be Muslim, just as I am proud to be a member of that elite fraternity of firefighters, EMTs, fire marshals and police officers, who risked and heroically gave their lives at the World Trade Center," James wrote.
After recounting the centuries-long history of Muslims in America, he declared: "We will not allow ourselves to be racially profiled or stigmatized in a way that threatens the dignity and freedoms of all Americans."
Muhammad said he felt relieved when, amid the chaos and suffocating debris, he found himself face to face with a Muslim colleague.
"It's hard to talk about my feelings, my religion, with most people," he said. "They just don't want to hear about Islam now."
The fellow EMT he ran into that day was Edris Bey, 42,a single father of five from Brooklyn.
"I don't know how we ended up next to each other that day, but I remember he said, 'If I'm going to die today, at least I'm going to die with a fellow Muslim.' Bey said. "I was scared. I was just thinking I don't want to die. These attacks have set Islam back by years."
Bey, who said he was a militant Muslim when he was younger, had only praise for colleagues at his station.
"That day it was unbelievable. When I came to the station there was nothing but love for me," said Bey, the only Muslim at his fire station. "My colleagues were hugging me and kissing me and crying. They thought I'd been killed because I was there when building two hit the ground."
James also stressed the cohesiveness of the department; "You always have knuckle-heads, but this is a brotherhood."
The fire department does not have a Muslim chaplain. The police department has one, as do all branches of the U.S. military. For more than six months, Imam Muhammad Abdulmalik has been acting as a spiritual adviser to the Islamic Society of Fire Department Personnel.
At least one Muslim, Salman Hamdani, a police cadet working on an emergency medical service team, is missing following the Sept. 11 attacks.